The Veterinary Care Accessibility Score
COUNTY LEVEL VCAS
This map shows the VCAS for every county throughout the contiguous 48 states. Click on any County to see its Veterinary Care Accessibility Score
State Level VCAS
By aggregating data at the state level, every state is given a VCAS
For details on the data and variables in the VCAS and map, check out the Data Dictionary
To learn more about how the VCAS is generated, go to Constructing the VCAS
About the Veterinary Care Accessibility Score
VCAS Version 1.0
The Veterinary Care Accessibility Score is an index that describes the accessibility of veterinary care in counties across the contiguous lower 48 states of the United States*. The index incorporates data on issues that affect access to care: income, transportation, language, veterinary hospitals. The VCAS is built in the image of other indices that mathematically summarize complex problems. For example, the Social Vulnerability Index, which summarizes negative effects on communities caused by external stresses, and the County Health Rankings evaluates community health by incorporating data on health care, behavior, social factors, and public policy.
*As of this time, inadequate data exists for Alaska and Hawaii
A Useful Tool
The VCAS is a tool. We intend for it to be used to help stakeholders make decisions regarding efforts related to veterinary access to care. For example: a foundation could use the VCAS to focus funding for projects; an industry executive may use it to strategize around bringing service to untapped markets; a county representative may use it to grow their tax base by creating a more pet friendly city. These are just a few examples, of course. The bottom line is this: the VCAS is intended to be useful; if you have ideas on how to make it more so, please get in touch.
Methodology
&Peer Review
Detailed methodology behind the VCAS was published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science in April 2022. The full text of this article can be accessed here.